Archive for gun trafficking

Yes the gun lobby has enabled the arming of child soldiers -- even younger than 10-years-old --and the deadly raging of local militia wars around the world. No, the National Rifle Association (NRA) is not selling small arms to militias; it is not recruiting child soldiers and giving them guns to fight for "rebel" forces around that commit atrocities; it does not directly sell firearms and weapons to rebel nations that commit massacres of its own people.

But the National Riffle Association has for years held up the United States endorsement of the international Arms Trade Treaty, which would provide a legal framework for limiting the profiteering of weapons that create killing fields, particularly in poorer nations. [...]

Around the globe, over a billion children live in countries impacted by armed conflict that is fueled by small arms and conventional weapons. These children are at grave risk of being abducted and trafficked, used as soldiers and sex slaves, forced from their homes, attacked at school. [...]

Amazingly, the Obama White House has not yet taken a position on the next round of treaty negotiations that begin on March 18th. If you counter that the treaty is not yet written so why should the president take a position at this time, then know this: "a round of treaty talks last July ended when the United States stepped away from the negotiating process," according to Amnesty International. The political factor behind the US walking away was, at a political level, the NRA. [...]

But the NRA... is claiming ... that the Arms Trade Treaty would lead to door-to-door confiscation of guns in the United States. [...]

[T]he NRA has successfully kept the floodgates open for arms being supplied to outlaw governments, militias, mass rapists, and the coerced and vast child soldier market. [...]

One doesn't need to dig deep to know that Wayne La Pierre, chief honcho and for the NRA, is the oracle of mendacity, the chief flamer thrower of these incendiary deceptions.

Meanwhile, child soldiers are forcibly recruited and trained to become numbed robotic killers, women are raped by armed "rebels" and rogue national armies, and civilians wantonly killed – all by killers armed so that the NRA can raise funds and enhance gun manufacturing profits by promoting lies that the Arms Trade Treaty would result in gun confiscation in the US. [...]

The firearms puns just keep on coming. Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn says he welcomes gunmakers to his state with "open arms." Bygones, but when it comes to connecting Republicans and bad jokes, it's becoming more and more difficult to resist.

But back to Gunn: He feels a little put-upon on behalf of those poor, victimized gun manufacturers, so he's inviting them to relocate to Mississippi where apparently they're pro-Second Amendment... as opposed to other states, see, that are anti-Second Amendment, see.

Yes, in GOP minds like his, if you don't approve of serial massacres of children and other innocents and would like to see common sense safety measures put in place to prevent future ones, you're anti-Second Amendment.

(CNN) -- Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn has invited gunmakers such as Colt to relocate to his state from others including Connecticut, where firearms have been a controversial issue since a school shooting there last December left 20 students and six adults dead.

The gun industry in Connecticut is being attacked and "demonized" because of national politics, Gunn said in a letter this week to Colt's Manufacturing Company CEO Dennis Veilleux.

He also invited gunmaker Magpul Industries Corp. of Colorado to relocate to Mississippi. Gunn, a Republican, said firearm manufacturers are "under attack in anti-Second Amendment states."

He's not only a job creator, he's a gun creator!

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) called the proposal "preposterous."

Connecticut residents support the Second Amendment and responsible gun ownership, "far from demonizing firearms products made here," Blumenthal said in a statement.

"This preposterous pitch to companies with long, successful histories in our state shows the need for national standards and statutes to reduce gun violence," the senator said. "Competition among states for less protective laws is a race to the bottom that should be avoided. The poison of illegal gun trafficking respects no state boundaries and threatens to cause more horrific tragedies like Newtown and the 1,900 gun violence deaths that have occurred since then."

That pretty much says it all. Simply moving business to other locations would not prevent guns from being moved back and forth between states, nor would it prevent gun violence, nor would it protect anyone's constitutional rights (those would be the same constitutional rights that are not being violated, by the way).

So grow up, gun zealots. Face facts. Dip a toe into the real world. Wouldn't that be novel?

While Darrell Issa is doing his GOPutz best trying to get Attorney General Holder fired for the Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation, we have a rather enormous firearms problem right here, right now, that very few people seem to talk about, lest the Big Bad NRA bite them.

And yes, I wanted to say "lest".

As you can see from the sting documented in the video above, it's easy for even a teenager to purchase a gun, because they are sold over the Internet with minimal oversight. Calling them regulations would be overstating it.

Hey parents out there, imagine the voice on that recording is your child.

More than 4,000 websites offer guns for sale, according to the Department of Justice. As the new report illustrates, the anonymity of the Internet has spurred huge growth in online sales. [...]

Federally licensed firearms dealers are required to conduct background checks on all buyers, whether in person or online. But unlicensed "private sellers" are exempt from conducting background checks. This so-called "gun show loophole," along with the Internet, now accounts for about 40 percent of U.S. sales, fueling what law enforcement officials say is a huge black market for illegal guns.

The New York Times has a fascinating piece up. They reveal a study about gun trafficking and firearms used in crimes that has some surprising results. Well, maybe not all that surprising to us blue state residents:

A study due to be released this week by a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns uses previously unavailable federal gun data to identify what it says are the states that most often export guns used in crimes across state lines. It concludes that the 10 worst offenders per capita, led by Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky, supplied nearly half the 43,000 guns traced to crime scenes in other states last year.

The study also seeks to draw a link between gun trafficking and gun control laws by analyzing gun restrictions in all 50 states in areas like background checks for gun purchases, policies on concealed weapons permits and state inspections of gun dealers. It finds that, across the board, those states with less restrictive gun laws exported guns used in crimes at significantly higher rates than states with more stringent laws. An advance copy of the study was provided to The New York Times.